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According to this article, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department knows that Pedobear is an Internet joke, but that hasn't stopped them from trying to warn the public about him. Their most recent tool in the fight against internet memes is this public safety information bulletin entitled: "An Introduction to PEDO BEAR." I look forward to the bulletin warning parents about the dangers of children playing in Chocolate Rain.

Very, but they still get to vote. Three guesses as to which way "they" lean.
Seriously, I want to laugh (and I do) but this (TFA and the sprinkler idiot) is troubling. Not just because these cops are stupid, but because it reflects a general failure of critical thinking across our society. The intellectual capacity required for a reasonable skepticism seems to be escaping a larger and larger swath of the populace, a swath which apparently now takes in those in important public safety roles. We're doomed.

The intellectual capacity required for a reasonable skepticism seems to be escaping a larger and larger swath of the populace

It seems this way, but if you look at history it's really just that more of the population has the ability to communicate to a large audience. Modern communications haven't resulted in better quality of information--it's just made communication cheaper and more accessible.

The intellectual capacity required for a reasonable skepticism seems to be escaping a larger and larger swath of the populace

It seems this way, but if you look at history it's really just that more of the population has the ability to communicate to a large audience. Modern communications haven't resulted in better quality of information--it's just made communication cheaper and more accessible.

And everybody gets a say, without any quality control. I think you have it exactly right.

I'll bite. Which way do cops lean? IMHO they lean towards "more jobs for cops with better pay and less work." This only looks right wing because their interests coincide with those of the right wing when it comes to "more jobs for cops with better pay and less work." Are cops for a balanced budget? Not if it means cuts for them. Are they for states rights? Not hardly! They are for cops' rights, they don't really care if they get them from the fed or the state. Socially, they may be somewhat conservative, especially when it comes to punishing criminals (of course.) And how do cops feel about unions? Great! As long as it is their union. Your union is useful as a cop employment program, you and or the boss need protection from each other, right? Overtime, baby!

A lot of what looks like partisan politics on bothy sides is actually lazy, selfish politics and people only tend to agree with party planks that directly benefit them.

Very, but they still get to vote. Three guesses as to which way "they" lean.

Hmmm.... I'm guessing the opposite of the way you lean?

Seriously, I want to laugh (and I do) but this (TFA and the sprinkler idiot) is troubling. Not just because these cops are stupid, but because it reflects a general failure of critical thinking across our society. The intellectual capacity required for a reasonable skepticism seems to be escaping a larger and larger swath of the populace, a swath which apparently now takes in those in important public safety roles. We're doomed.

Have you read up on some history recently? Witch burnings. Inquisitions. Holy wars. Mccarthyism. Geocentrism. Racism. Slavery. Feudalism. These aren't exactly a new phenomenon. To be honest, we're probably better off now than we've ever been before, and we've made it this far. I'm not terribly worried.

Police are continously selectively enforcing the law. Everry time any cop doesnt book a litter bug or a illegally parked car they are using their discretion. Personally I would like the police to concentrate on protecting people from violence and theft not enforcing pot laws for example.

I don't agree that it makes them look stupid. PedoBear may be a joke, but dressing like PedoBear in a mask and costume and handing out candy is an inappropriate joke to play on young children (or their parents), and Comic-Con is crawling with young children. He shouldn't have been kicked out of the Con altogether (if he was), but I agree with telling him that he's had his fun and he can now go back to his hotel room and take the costume off.

PedoBear may be a joke, but dressing like PedoBear in a mask and costume and handing out candy is an inappropriate joke to play on young children (or their parents)

Why? I can understand the organizers of ComicCon asking the guy to go away, but why should the police be able to tell someone to go away if the organizers haven't asked them to? I coulda sworn we had freedom of speech around here...

Well, one, are you sure nobody asked them to? I would find it odd for your typical San Diego beat cop to be able to spot PedoBear in a crowd.

No, I'm not sure whether they were asked or not. But I was more questioning your statement, not what actually happened. You seemed to be implying that it would be okay for a police officer to walk up and ask someone to leave an event solely because they were dressed in a bear costume, even though they were breaking no laws.

Oh, I think it's useful... but in regards to 2) I've only seen pedobear pop up in forums posted by third parties to indicate that interactions between other people are getting that kind of creepy. So in that respect, if you see a lot of pedobears being posted, someone on the channel is acting creepy (not necessarily the guy who is posting the pedobear).

I would argue that it's a useless warning, in that 99.99% of the time people see Pedobear, it's as a joke. It would be like saying that many domestic abusers wear baseball caps, therefor you should be on the lookout for baseball caps because any time you see one someone will beat your spouse when you're not looking.

But as someone else pointed out, using this as a "warning sign" of any sort is pointless. If some pedos have started using it, that's all well and good; but the vast majority of its use is as a joke or insult. Therefore the vast majority of the times you see it there's no hidden meaning. It's like saying that anytime you see someone with a cell phone you should be worried, because occasionally people use cell phones to sell drugs.

"We know that this is a joke, but we're going to approach it as if it's a serious thing."

Your tax dollars at work, people.

Yeah, well if you did a survey, I bet most of the people in the area would approve that their Sheriff's department is "doing something" about online child predators. And if the Sheriff in the county is elected, you just know in the next election he's going to have something that states he fought child internet predators.

And we have a winner. I am guessing this is exactly what is going on...getting a talking point for reelection since any retraction will probably be forgotten.. so instead of looking like an idiot who does not understand a very serious problem, he will get hailed as a diligent working trying to protect children.

Add to that... a police department of a sizeable city usually has a few cops that temporarily aren't put on active duty (whether it's some kind of formal or informal suspension) because they've had recent problems abusing their authority or other violations that were egregious enough that the chief/sheriff had to do something.

In the case of my local P.D., these cops generally get D.A.R.E. duty or are sent places dressed up as McGruff the crime dog. That's right -- if you're the cop that can't be trusted with the authority of your office, you get to be the one they send to deal with children. That's a great idea.

In the context of that, getting the cops you can't put on duty to warn of the dangers of pedobear doesn't seem that ridiculous, and, as you said, probably is helpful at election time.

I was at a Costco and the police (i think) had a bear mascot encouraging kids to get fingerprinted in case they get kidnapped.I told the mascot: "You haven't heard about Pedobear, have you?"The mascot shook its head no.I snickered into Costco...

I've had a few friends who have been cops, and while being nice guys and girls they can be universally described as totally ignorant to the point of actual stupidity. It always stunned me at how profoundly they misunderstood the simplest things. They could not and would not contextualise anything.

Eveything was either breaking the law (however they chose to define it) or potentially breaking the law.

Needless to say, I have dumped all 5 of them knowing they would end up in trouble, psychotic or corrupt. I

This constant paranoia over pedophilia has gotten insane. While it is a terrible crime, the odds of your kid getting killed by an SUV dwarf the odds that they will get molested by a stranger(some studies suggest that the child knows the perpetrator about 90% of the time). Meanwhile fearful parents park their kids in front of some sort of glowing rectangle and let them eat themselves to an early grave because a guaranteed life of obesity seems somehow better than a slim(really slim if your properly educate and observe the children) chance that they will be molested.

Furthermore the whole police state mentality is driving people who have these urges further and further underground. Dan Savage had a really interesting call on his podcast a few months back about someone who said he couldn't control his attraction to children. He hadn't molested anyone yet but he was scared he might, but thanks to the way the law is written now, if he seeks help the psychiatrist MUST report him to the cops where he will be thrown in prison and then booted out into a world where he is a pariah just for THOUGHTS he may have had. So instead of this man being able to seek professional help(which could include chemical castration), he is now forced to battle his demons on his own and is probably MORE likely to molest a kid than if he had been able to get help. But somehow Americans think that if they can use the police to arrest someone, they should no matter what the actual or perceived crime is.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not trying to minimize molestation, it's a real and terrible thing. But being irrationally afraid of the problem isn't going to make it go away and really isn't going to leave your children in a very healthy state when they grow up.

S'okay, I know you meant "I'm certainly not trying to trivialize molestation,"

Yes, you are correct, in the vast majority of cases where children are molested by adults, it is by either a family member or friend of the family, not some stranger the parents/guardians don't even know about.

a guaranteed life of obesity seems somehow better than a slim [...] chance that they will be molested. [...]

it's a real and terrible thing.

... not really.

I know a LOT of people that did stuff when they were 8-14. This includes people that were 10-12 and getting/giving oral to other kids in their class, or (common) girls who were 12-13 the first time they screwed an 18 year old boy. Hell, I know a lot of girls that were 14-15 and actively seducing 22-25 year old guys; this had at one point been an annoyance for me because... well, they're not unique, and I've been hit on by 14 year olds. Easy fix for that is hang out in bars where 14 year olds can't go, and work in a secure building you need a clearance to get into (cleared commercial contractor or federal building)... no more annoying teenagers trying to get me in trouble! (Yes I'm paranoid; teenage girls are evil and they MUST be fishing for blackmail material, I swear... don't fucking touch them)

Overall though, the people I know that went through that stuff... had fun, and are actually pretty happy about it. People I know that didn't seem more uptight and afraid of their own shadow, and also more prone to rely on the opinions of others even when their own feelings differ (group-think... you can tell, because they either get very uncomfortable or very aggressive while they try to blend in).

Of course, I know people who were raped and they're not happy about it, and have some lingering issues... after over a decade they understand their issues, but still have a little trouble. I don't know anyone whose been raped and murdered, though... for obvious reasons.

Well, since you have a few anecdotes to share, I guess that means the reams of studies and statistics demonstrating the very real, long term, and harmful consequences of sexual abuse of children is invalidated!

Thanks for letting us know.

For what it's worth: sexual contact with a child by an adult (which is what we're talking about when we talk about pedophilia) is rape. It is very different from a couple 12 year olds "playing doctor." I also find it curious that you seem to feel most 14 year old girls ar

Most studies on the topic only question those cases that are referred to law enforcement.

Population samples are much harder to find and consistently indicate minor long-term problems, but in aggregate, those are minimal... roughly as strong a correlation as growing up black, or poor.

Very few studies (only 3 IIRC) even allow the participants to specify that they feel the experience was positive. Those that do tend to have a not insubstantial number of responses that indicate this outcome.

I don't understand the paranoia. It's so unproductive as to be almost absurd.

Sheep herder mentality. The politicians incite fear and get control. We always need witches in our society to hunt.

Yes, you're right, this is not something we should condone. But that said, we have absolutely no way of evaluating "13 year old Megan snuck over the neighbors house and asked to suck his dick after going on the Internet to look at NAUGHTY PICTURES teeeheeeheee..." (yes this happens) versus "35 year old Michael Kiddyfucker gagged, beat, and anally raped 9 year old Jenny for 10 hours straig

Well, since you have a few anecdotes to share, I guess that means the reams of studies and statistics demonstrating the very real, long term, and harmful consequences of sexual abuse of children is invalidated!

Don't be a douche. He was talking about underage sexual activity, not sexual abuse. The law doesn't distinguish the two, partly because it's hard to do so. But if you have have studies and statistics about the long-term aftereffects of consensual underage sex that you'd care to (not) cite, that could be different, you know?

You've got a fair point that underage sexual activity is largely irrelevant to the topic of pedophilia. I think bluefoxlucid may have taken antifoidulus's text a bit out of context, or gone off-topic a bit. But his point, as I understood it, is that there's a distinction between underage sex and sexual abuse - and that it's not the act of underage sex that's harmful, but the scenario of being raped.

The law can put out a blanket definition that classifies any sex with a minor as "rape" - and that can be a

what you are talking about has nothing to do with pedophilia. for one, the correct usage of pedophilia only refers to young, prepubescent children. being attracted to post-pubescent adolescents, teenagers and such (individuals that have mostly finished the physical maturation process - broad hips and bust in women, broad shoulders in men), is called ephebophilia, and is completely natural.

modern society has seen fit to lump it in with pedophilia, and for some reason 18 is seen as a magical age where 'OK, now it's socially acceptable to be sexually attracted to this person' but has no basis in biology or (nonrecent) human society. from a biological perspective, we are PROGRAMMED to be attracted to individuals in the mid to upper teenage years, because they are most likely to bear healthy offspring. given the variation that can occur in individuals reaching physical maturity, it can be damn hard to differentiate between some 16 year olds and 20 year olds.

For countless thousands of years, females were being married and having children at ages that would cause modern society to cringe, oftentimes to much older men, and it was the norm. Of course, recent advances in women's rights has probably had a lot to do with it, as now a female is treated as a human being with rights, as opposed to a piece of property that was to be married off for a dowry and social standing. but i digress.

actual pedophilia would be the case of a significantly older individual taking advantage of their position of power to sexually abuse a young, prepubescent child who is either unable to stop the attacker, or is too young/confused/scared to make a decision on the matter. it is ALWAYS rape, because the child can never give true consent, because they simply can't really understand what is going on. this has been shown to usually cause significant mental trauma and long term effects to the child, who is often made to feel guilty and ashamed of the whole thing, possibly repressing the memories to cause a festering canker of mental scar tissue that will stick around forever.

so... yeah. your anecdotes about horny young preteens and teenagers humping each other in the closet or hitting on older individuals is hardly relevant to the issue of pedophilia.

If by insane you mean political. It's an extremely easy thing to demonize, especially in the Western 'Culture of Fear.' That makes it easy to funnel money into whatever the politicos want simply because they claim they're "thinking of the children, and if you don't like it you're a pedophile." Scare tactics will always be a net positive for politicos while the public at large suffers even while they think they're "safer" or whatever makes them feel better. Fear is easy money.

if he seeks help the psychiatrist MUST report him to the cops where he will be thrown in prison and then booted out into a world where he is a pariah just for THOUGHTS he may have had. So instead of this man being able to seek professional help(which could include chemical castration), he is now forced to battle his demons on his own and is probably MORE likely to molest a kid than if he had been able to get help.

These days I'm usually not to skeptical when someone mentions laws which seem horribly unconstitutional. I know I'm probably going to be disappointed by the answer, but I still have to ask: are you sure that having a certain attraction without doing anything is actually a crime? I'm going to ask for a citation for that, and a real citation, not a caller on Dan Savage's show. Because while there are some terrible laws, I thought we hadn't ventured into the territory of bona-fide thought crimes.

In many states, mandatory reporting laws have been interpreted to apply to those who merely express "pedophile tendencies" under the "imminent threat" statutes. Reporting does not often lead to prosecution, but it can. It can also lead to civil action such as social services intervention or execution of restraining orders.

I cite Indiana case law "Kevin Brown vs Indiana c 2006". His biological child was taken from him and his same-aged wife because he called a radio show and admitted to being attracted to kids. He had already informed his wife and friends and even had written plans to ensure that he would never be in a situation he could even remotely be accused of abusing a kid. Nevertheless, his child was taken by "emergency order of protection", by a squad of armed officers. In order to ensure his child didn't end up in foster care, he had to move out of his house, after which they placed the child with his wife and issued a restraining order against him "ad litem".

He took the case to the Indiana supreme court and lost. The conclusion was that there was no obligation of protection of liberty for someone who was an admitted pedophile because he represented an "imminent threat" and he could be subject to civil action by social services or otherwise.

Additionally, in California, in "Jack McLelan vs California c2007" a pedophile loudly proclaimed his attraction to young girls. The district attorney of his area applied a restraining order, barring him from being less than 10 meters from a child, or 100 meters from anywhere children congregate. This ban actually legally prevented him from entering the court, since there was a daycare facility in the same building, though they chose not to prosecute him for coming to his own hearings. He opted to leave the state rather than fight the restriction.

Presumably, a similar argument could be made in some states to raid his house and seize his electronics to search for illegal material, based on the "imminent threat" argument, though I'm not aware of that having been attempted, though it wouldn't surprise me if it had and simply didn't reach the public airwaves, due to the lack of notoriety of the target.

A few studies (they're really hard to find and finance) that try to determine the number of people in a population who are pedophiles, seem to indicate that they represent a non-trivial amount of the population (at least several million in the US/Canada) and something like 60-90% of them never do anything illegal.

Do you SERIOUSLY advocate locking up all of these people to "err on the side of caution"? Yeck.

has some honest and true insights on this topic. In a less-blue approach, lies about widespread pedophilia and prevalent terrorism are the twin horns the inevitable police state are being built upon. And because of religion and accelerating stupidity as prophesied in Idiocracy, there is no stopping it.

Hey, most people are not aware of the latest memes. Those who know about Pedobear may know (yes, tautology) but most people don't. Nice that the Sheriff does issue at least an explanation with appropriate warning. And yes, most people find jokes about pedophilia not funny, and don't want such material anywhere near their kids.

Pedobear appeared at Dragon Con in Atlanta a few weeks ago, too. It was a different costume than the one shown. He had a "free hugs" sign and when a grown-up would hug him, he'd flip the sign over to say "too old".
Here's a picture, about 1/3 of the way down: http://www.epbot.com/2010/09/dragoncon-costume-gallery-3.html [epbot.com]

I've been living around SLO now for six years or so. The Sherriff's Department is in a bit of an awkward position. On one hand, they have local politicians breathing down their necks to be tougher on crime. Between the Cal Poly party scene and the inevitable knee-jerk hatred of the college kids, there is definitely a sharp ideological divide between the SLOcals and the Polywags. On the other hand, there are some pretty high crime rate areas in the county (like my current town, Oceano) where violent crimes and gang activities are pretty common. Thus, the Sherriff's department is usually in a game of tug-o-war between what the county-seat residents demand (more enforcement in San Luis Obispo proper) and what is probably needed most (more enforcement in surrounding communities). As such, the Sherriff's department has to come up with a lot of unique ways of addressing odd problems.

It wouldn't surprise me if this flier was released in response to some of the SLOcals shitting bricks over something one of their teenage kids read in an internet forum. However, the Sheriff's department probably doesn't want to spend any time or manpower on the issue. So they probably released the flier to shut the local whiners up while maintaining enough autonomy to do their real jobs. For what it's worth, every time I've dealt with a Sheriff deupty here, it's been pretty pleasant. One of them helped scrape me off the road when I crashed my motorcycle, and even gave me a ride home when I refused to go to the hospital. Another couple of them recognize me when I am jogging now and wave and say hi if they are outside of their cars. I've never had them stop me for trivial bullshit. I've never had them stop me period. It's always been SLO PD and the CHP that give me shit over ridiculous stuff.

All in all, SLO county is a delightfully weird place to live. the SLO folk are so hell bent about maintaining a nice community that they pass all sorts of batshit insane, jerk off laws. For instance, just this year a city-wide ban on smoking was enacted. You can't smoke anywhere in public now, or within 20 feet of another person's residence. So if you smoke, you're screwed. Then there was the measure that made it so noise ordinance violations could be classified as "unruly gatherings" and, rather than simply fining the offenders, all members present can now be criminally prosecuted and arrested. As such, I'd hate to work for the Sheriff's department. They are stuck between trying to prevent real crimes (like the constant stabbings in Oceano, or the poaching of wildlife up in Cayucos) and pandering to a bunch of rich whiny twats that want to create the "perfect community." It's strange.

Holy jesus I was going to post almost an exact duplicate of yours. I lived in SLO proper for 5 years while going to school and I must say that the town is absolutely crazy. Its a great place to visit--fun shops, beaches nearby, the school, extensive bro culture (alright, that last one was a joke)--but the amount of bullshit the cops give everyone along with the ridiculous laws like the smoking ban were enough to make me move away forever.

I was once pulled over and fined $180 for riding my bike with headphones on. Three of my friends have been arrested for drunk in public just because they were stumbling a bit on their walk home. Cops show up at most every party at exactly 10:00pm to issue $300 fines for first offense, and they double every time after that (the frats full of rich white guys are immune, though). There is a vigilante program run by the police called "SNAPS" that employs students to spy on parties. The Cal Poly PD is SLOPD, yet they are allowed to make a profit off of parking and traffic violating on campus (yes, the campus is a public institution but that money should go towards the school to better the parking situation).

And every summer the town is flooded by an army of retired, driving around in their aluminum boats. They make their way the wrong way down one way streets, they drive into groups of people walking in a cross walk on an unprotected left turn, and they blow countless stop signs to the dismay of the local cyclists. Their tour buses block entire roads and the packs they travel in on foot show no regard to traffic signs (WALK or DONT WALK) but the cops don't care. The whole community doesn't care and doesn't realize that most of the money coming into the town is from the college and the young students who attend. But as long as time continues to pass and the youth inevitably become the elders, this situation wont change. Those damn kids are just rampaging around with nothing but disdain, incarcerate them all I say!

cute face and non-threatening appearance negate the truth of his sinister, much darker side.

Number of actual children Pedobear has molested: 0.

Number of actual children "respectable" people with power have molested: Seemingly infinite.

Might want to focus on the proven danger there, Mr. Police Officer.

We have gone from a society of doers to a society of press-releasers. Welcome to the empire's fall, kids. Enjoy the bread and circuses.

Pedobear is and should be associated with the internet and pedophiles/sexually-preferential offenders who reportedly use him to communicate their interests in young children to each other.

I love that. The entire point of the document is to FEAR THE BEAR! but their evidence can be summed up as panic-panic-guy-over-there-seen-with-a-kid-REPORTEDLY-child-molester-panic-panic.

So one guy in a suit in public surrounded by cameras watching his every move = advanced agent for the Pedophile Illuminati? I can see some cop sitting inside HQ and cuddling his gun, gibbering "First the queers ruined rainbows and now the baby-rapers are ruining teddy bears!"

And if I was part of some secret and highly illegal group that needed a way of identifying members I don't think I would use the one thing in the entire universe that people associate with the illegal activity in question.

may be an indicator of the presence of individuals who have a predilection to sexually inappropriate, or even assaultive behavior

Translation: We will use it as a justification to kick down your door, terrorize your family, and shoot your dog in the middle of the night. Saves us having to make up an "anonymous tip" and finds you guilty in the eyes of the potential jury pool all at once!

"Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers. Seems like you can scare any public into allowing the government to do anything with those four." - Bruce Schneier [schneier.com].

Pedobear has always been their mascot. That's what he's for. It is also a wholly vacuous truth, they can't "use him" to gain access or anything else any more than a baseball team can use a giant chicken steal second.

I heard that at some point you could post pictures to 4chan concatenated with a rar file (the extra data would just be ignored and a picture displayed) and a pedobear picture was used sometimes to exchange pictures of dubious morality. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, this is just something I heard in a 4chan thread so it could be bullshit but it certainly sounds plausible enough.